Take Care Shopping Online

At Stancombe Research + Planning we love it when our research makes a difference.

Work that we have recently completed on behalf of Fair Trading NSW in response to complaints that they had received has given us all major insight into some of the significant risks facing consumers who shop online.

For example, our research showed that nearly half of all businesses selling products and services online do not have:

• secure web page payment processes or secure personal information collection systems in place

• formalised systems to deal with product returns

Our research also indicated that only about a third of all businesses selling products on line have risk management processes in place to deal with security breaches. 

Given that $1 billion will be spent online this year and up to $3 billion of purchases are forecast to be made online in 3 years time it’s good to see that Fair Trading NSW is being really proactive in this retail area - especially as nearly three quarters of all online shopping is conducted with businesses operating within Australia.

As the growth in the online shopping industry is forecast to treble in three years, we hope to soon see some shifts in the quite startling benchmarks obtained by the research for Fair Trading NSW when we dive back into the market in the future. Surely it can’t be too long before some of the basic standards of security that are expected by people who shop on the high street are replicated by online stores and business in Australia?

Thank you Fair Trading NSW for giving us the opportunity to highlight these important issues and for crediting Stancombe Research + Planning with the original research activity. It’s always great to be acknowledged for the work we do.

The research report executive overview can be found HERE

The full research report executive is HERE

The Sydney Morning Herald report can be found HERE

The Australian report can be found HERE